Cuba Straits Read online

  Rivera used his hands to say I’m not done. “The point is, I was still being followed. Now I’m worried they are following Figuerito, too. That they’ll stick him with a needle, like my beautiful friend who has lost her hair. That’s why I must find him, then return immediately to Cuba.”

  “I’ll be damned. You actually care about the guy.” Ford didn’t pose this as a question.

  “He is a simpleton, that shortstop, but very honest—also crazy, from what I’ve been told. Perhaps these Russians will be the lucky ones if I find him first.”

  “You mean he’s dangerous?”

  Rivera replied, “I think not, but who can say what is in a man’s head? My friend on the phone continues to warn me that Figuerito is a violent psychopath. Even the warden I bribed described him as a serial killer without conscience, so . . .” The former dictator lowered the window to watch a plane land, his mind slipping back in memory. A bemused smile formed. “Of course, as you know, there are people who say the same about me.”

  • • •

  A LITTLE BEFORE TEN, Ford got an NA beer and sat at the computer in his lab. Across the room, the dog opened one yellow eye to watch, seeing Ford’s familiar size, lighted water boxes and odors behind him, then heard the man’s familiar voice.

  “That damn Tomlinson, not a word since his stupid text. So maybe there’s an email . . . if he wasn’t too blitzed to find an Internet café.”

  Sailing south on a righteous mission . . . don’t worry the text had read.

  Ford used two fingers to rap at the keyboard, his wire glasses silver beneath a gooseneck lamp, while he spoke to the retriever: “If there’s nothing to worry about, why the hell doesn’t he call? At least have the courtesy to give me an update. Oh . . . I bet I know—a waterproof phone case is pointless if he doesn’t use the damn thing. Or, just thoughtless. Yeah, thoughtless, that’s him.”

  More typing. The dog’s yellow eye closed; he returned to sleep while the alpha figure spoke, occasionally, in a tone that communicated nothing, but tilted his head when he heard “What the hell?”

  Ford’s neighbors Rhonda and JoAnn, who lived aboard an old Chris-Craft, Tiger Lilly, had sent an email, subject: Man of the Year. There were photos of Tomlinson, naked on a bed, posing with three topless women—two large-breasted blondes, the other dark-haired, younger and attractive, despite cat whiskers painted on her face. Little tufts of horns on her temples, too, which caused her to resemble a woodland creature with teeth.

  Ford was no prude but closed the photo after reading Rhonda’s note:

  Copied from Facebook just now before they took it down. 726 likes. Capt. Quirk went back to Key West?

  Relief, is what he felt at first. A foursome negated the chances of radiation poisoning or a bullet. Yet, something about one of the blondes tugged at his subconscious. He opened the photo again . . . had to zoom in tight to avoid the distraction of her Teutonic breasts. Tomlinson’s boney thighs, thank god, vanished, too. Ford removed his glasses, cleaned them, and focused on a necklace the blonde wore: a silver shield transected by a tiny ornate sword. Atop the sword’s hilt was a star.

  “Jesus H. Christ.” Ford pushed his chair back as the dog’s head bounced to attention.

  “He has no idea what he’s gotten himself into. I’ll call Rhonda. It might help to know when this was posted.”

  The dog didn’t bother to stretch, trotted to his side, while Ford, talking to himself, picked up the phone and muttered, “That woman, she’s with the goddamn KGB.”

  Actually, the FSB—Russian Federal Security Service. No reason to explain to a dog that only the name had been changed.

  • • •

  MOORED BETWEEN PILINGS beneath the stilthouse was his boat: a 26-foot rigid hull inflatable purchased through friends at the Special Ops base in Tampa—a confiscated cocaine boat, supposedly, but he knew otherwise. It tugged at its lines on this night of calm and stars, no moon, no clouds, no wind or waves.

  Weather blew through the tropics with the indifference of airplanes passing overhead.

  Ford found the light switch. Mullet scattered; shadows of big fish drifted under the dock until the dog vaulted after them.

  “Damn it. Now I’ll have to get a towel for the truck.”

  Instead, he stepped aboard. The deck, mounted on hydraulic shocks, absorbed his weight without listing. Couldn’t hurt to check a few things, although he was a fastidious man who obsessed over his tools, from microscopes to fly rods, dive gear, and weapons.

  Boats received special attention. This one was made by Brunswick Tactical in Edgewater, Florida. It had all the high-tech frills: a radar tower aft, a cavernous console, and an electronics suite above the wheel. The hull was Kevlar encircled by tubes of black carbon fiber that looked bulletproof—and maybe were, considering the agency that had commissioned it. To minimize radar signature, the boat was built low to the water with few right angles or vertical surfaces, and had a bow hood made of neoprene polymer sheeting that was radar-absorbent. When opened, the hood covered the bow like a tent.

  For power: twin Merc 250s, top speed over sixty, a range of four hundred miles—almost to Cuba and back, or almost to the Yucatán.

  Almost being the operative word.

  Ford checked fuel, oil, and plugged in the charger even though all four batteries were new.

  At Jensen’s Marina on Captiva he had stored a fifty-gallon gas bladder, thinking he would never need it. He told the dog, “Let’s hope I don’t.”

  • • •

  FROM HIS TRUCK, he phoned Scottsdale, Arizona, Colorado Springs, and an unnamed city in Maryland. The process was so complicated it resembled ceremony. Six calls, five recordings, and, finally, one human voice: Hal Harrington, an old associate who still owed Ford a big favor, but the conversation did not go well.

  Harrington saying, “You dropped out. What do you want me to do?”

  Irritating, the bland way he spoke. Before getting in his truck, Ford had sent the man an encrypted note, part of a text he had received from his pilot friend Dan Futch. Implicit was Ford’s request for help:

  “Mexico such a shithole via Bahamas only safe route. Most likely San Andros, clear customs, use Bethells as residence. Approach from east at night, low altitude, fifty feet max, use mountains to obscure Fat Albert, and hope no boats in the area when we land.”

  They were directions, a seaplane ingress that could be to only one place, Cuba, although the island wasn’t mentioned. Something else not mentioned was that the charter company, Tampa to Havana, would not accept firearms as baggage. Even if they did, the next flight wasn’t until Sunday. Neither option would get him to Cuba before Tomlinson arrived the next night or Friday morning, depending on the wind.

  Ford attempted patience with his former boss. “I sent you something fifteen minutes ago. Maybe you didn’t get it.”

  “Really? Guess not.”

  Harrington was lying.

  Ford said, “Didn’t we learn a technique called communiqué by omission? I’m reluctant to spell it out. Hal?”—he tried to soften this into a request—“Don’t make me.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “You know better. Maybe if you check your emails again? In the note’s first line, there’s a mention of Mexico.”

  After a couple of seconds, Harrington said, “I’ll be damned. A little confusing the way it’s worded, but it helps. You should have referenced this in the first place.”

  “I’m a little rusty, I guess.” The dog, with his nose out the window, ears flapping in the wind, sneezed.

  “Gesundheit,” Harrington said.

  “Thank you,” Ford replied. “I wouldn’t jump the ladder if I didn’t think this was serious.”

  “Does that mean you’re interested in coming back?”

  Ford resorted to a lie. “It’s that obvious? I never thought I’d get tired of sitting on my
butt in air-conditioning, but, yeah, I sort of miss the old days.”

  “You’ve always been a sentimental guy, Doc.” A hint of sarcasm there. “Well . . . I guess I could do some checking around. As a friend—not as a contracted deal, of course. Keep that in mind. What I’m still unclear about is—”

  Ford pushed the phone away from his ear, thinking, I might as well hang up right now. That happened a few minutes later when he lost patience and said, “I don’t give a damn, Hal, if it’s protocol or not.”

  Harrington was a trigger-puller, the real deal, but, through necessity, had developed the polish of a politician. “I know,” the man replied. “Any wonder your special phone doesn’t ring anymore?”

  • • •

  FORD HAD INTENDED to buy extra dog food at the 7-Eleven. Instead, he headed for Jensen’s Twin Palm on Captiva, which was across Blind Pass Bridge. Impossible not to slow at Castaways and check the cottage windows. Maggie was there, the same cheap rental in the drive.

  “I don’t know what’s got into me,” he said to the dog, thinking the words but sometimes speaking aloud. “This one-night stand bullshit, it’s symptomatic of something. Totally out of character.”

  The dog wasn’t interested.

  “If she’s awake, I’ve got a built-in excuse. Those papers stolen from Castro’s estate? Didn’t find a single damn article. She wasn’t lying. Why would she make that up? That tells me something about her possible occupation. Reason enough, I think, to sneak a look at her phone. Now I’m glad I did.” Ford noticed car lights behind him and pulled into the grocery parking lot, the store and Sunset Café closed, but the Flamingo still open if he was hungry.

  Maybe later.

  “On the other hand, if I ask, she might have to reveal something about herself. Next, we’d be trading numbers and I don’t want that. Know why?” With the truck running, he focused on Maggie’s cottage, hoping the screen door would open, also hoping it wouldn’t.

  It didn’t.

  On the road again, he finally admitted, Because Maggie’s married, that’s why. Pissed at himself because he’d known from the start. You can remove a ring, but not a tan line. Breaking a personal rule was taboo, but lying to himself was worse.

  That wasn’t his only lie.

  At Jensen’s Marina, by the docks, palm trees framed a vast darkness where navigation lights blinked, red, white, and green. Ford let the dog out, walked to the bait tanks, and stared. To the northeast, across six miles of water and muted by mangroves, a milky dot marked the fishing village of Sulphur Wells. A woman lived there. An unusually good woman; smart, independent, and solid. Captain Hannah Smith was also a first-rate fishing guide.

  They had dated, but it was more that; now they were done.

  Ford touched the phone in his pocket . . . hesitated, still staring, and sent a telepathic message: I’ll call you when I get back.

  The fifty-gallon fuel bladder, stored beside the office, was empty, so it was easy enough to load. It took longer to unlock the fuel pump at Dinkin’s Bay, where Mack complained, “Working the graveyard shift now, are we? What’s up?” It was almost midnight.

  Ford contrived a story about Ridley turtles and camping on Shark River, south of Naples.

  Hours later, in darkness, with engines synched, he threaded the cutoff Lighthouse Beach and pointed his boat toward Key West.

  Key West Cemetery is nineteen acres of shipwrights, cigarmakers, gunrunners, wreckers, sailors, and others who would have been happier drowned at sea. Not a cheery place at night, especially after an hour spent searching for a missing shortstop. No flashlight, only a lighter to flick, after tripping over several tombstones, one of which turned out to be the grave of an old friend.

  Tomlinson felt a descending melancholy. He sat with his back against the stone and tested a happier theory.

  “Hell, Shine . . . maybe I’m imagining this entire goat fest. Is that why you called this meeting?”

  From beneath the stone Captain Kermit “Shine” Forbes responded, Boy, get off your dead butt an’ go find that li’l Cuban.

  Tomlinson obeyed. He was striding toward Passover Lane when he noticed blue flashers to the south and sirens. Experience told him to flee north, but he maintained control and crept toward the lights anyway. When he was close enough, he stopped behind a tree and listened as two cops questioned a man who, even seated on the grass, was the size of a grizzly bear.

  “We got anyone on the force who speaks Russian? Harry, try Spanish and see what you get.”

  Harry wasn’t as loud. The bear-sized man, who was Russian, mumbled. Tomlinson crawled on hands and knees to the next tombstone so he could hear better.

  “. . . That’s all I could understand. He says their attacker was a Cuban guy.”

  “In this town?” Cop laughter. “He’ll have to do better than that. Jesus Christ, the guy’s huge, huh? Over three hundred pounds, I bet.”

  More questions, more mumbling. Then Harry, sounding surprised, said, “Christ, he claims his buddy is dead. Somewhere around here, beaten to death. Or half dead. And says he—this guy—that he tripped over something and maybe hit his head. That’s why he got away.”

  “The Cuban, you mean?”

  “Yeah, the assailant—if it really happened.”

  “Bullshit. Where’s the body? I don’t see blood on the guy’s clothes or anywhere else. I think he’s wasted.”

  “We’ll have to see what he blows. Wait . . . Now he claims the guy, the assailant, had . . . what? Say it again . . . Yeah, he says the Cuban had knives on his shoes—‘razors,’ I think he means. That he used . . . a shoe.”

  “Used a shoe as a murder weapon? Geezus, what next?”

  “I’m just telling you, guy’s Spanish sucks.”

  “He’s shitfaced. Meth, maybe. Wait and see, he’s a junkie.”

  “I dunno . . . A guy his size, and more than a thousand euros in his wallet. Notice those white socks and the shirt. He’s just a tourist, I think. Call, have dispatch look up the Russian word for ‘spikes.’ As in track or baseball.”

  Oh shit . . .

  Tomlinson, on his knees, did an about-face and crawled toward the monument to sailors killed on the USS Maine, Havana Harbor, 1898.

  When it was safe, he ran.

  • • •

  FIGGY WAS INVISIBLE, curled cat-like in the dinghy, until he sat up and asked, “What took you so long? Two hours was plenty for me.”

  Tomlinson had to cover his mouth, it scared him so badly.

  This was around four-thirty a.m., still dark, but the wind was freshening. By dawn, they were aboard No Más, south of Sand Key Light, sails taut beneath seabirds that flocked landward. Upon a cobalt sea, shadows spooked fish to flight—comets of silver like dragonflies.

  Tomlinson had to make a decision. Return to Sanibel Island or maintain course to Cuba? Tethered high above Cudjoe Key was Fat Albert, a radar balloon that narced innocent boats and planes for a radius of two hundred miles. Nosey pricks, those feds. A sailboat would draw less attention, of course, and the Cubans wouldn’t notice until they’d crossed the Straits, but, even so, harboring a murderer as a shipmate invited prying eyes.

  This was a decision that couldn’t be discussed with the suspect in question, who also happened to be a dope-smoking illegal—two marks in Figgy’s favor, but not enough to convince Tomlinson. He would have called Ford for advice—the biologist was an old hand at this sort of ugly business—if his cell phone hadn’t drowned. There was always the marine operator via VHF, but the probability of eavesdroppers nixed that idea.

  He steered south and, at noon, disengaged the autopilot and changed to a heading of 230 degrees to avoid Havana and negate the relentless flow of the Gulf Stream. No Más creaked and groaned, cleaving waves that shattered like crystal and threw spray to salt his first beer of the day.

  Figgy, subdued, stuck to bottled water, bu
t did remark, “I’m done with German witches. They give me a headache.”

  An hour went by before Tomlinson finally asked what he’d been afraid to ask: “What happened to your baseball spikes?”

  The Cuban wiggled his bare toes. “I still got one left, but you told me no spikes on the boat.”

  “I appreciate that. What about the other shoe?”

  He expected a lie but sat straighter when Figgy replied, “I used it to beat the Santero on the head, then it flew away and disappeared. Makes me sad to talk about. Why don’t we put on some music?”

  Okay—the Latina enchantress Omara Portuondo singing “Dos Gardenias.” Tomlinson turned it up, saying, “You’re sad because the guy you beat is a novice priest, yes, I understand. Were you hurt during the fight?”

  Just a scrape, which looked more like a puncture wound when the shortstop extended his arm.

  “What about the Santero?”

  “Sure hope I hurt him. All my life, I wanted nice baseball spikes. That son of a bitch, I think he caused my shoe to disappear because I was hitting him hard, brother. Now I’ve got no American dollars and only one shoe.”

  Gad. Time to regroup. How to handle this without turning it into an interrogation? One thing Tomlinson knew, Figueroa Casanova was true to his vow not to lie. Or wait . . . In a past conversation, hadn’t he allowed himself some wiggle room? I promised never to lie unless . . .

  Unless what?

  Tomlinson was averse to verbal traps because his own innocence had been tested too often. He toned it down by asking, “What happened to the Russian? In the cemetery, I heard him talking to cops. I couldn’t tell if he was hurt or not, but he claimed the guy you hit is dead. That you clubbed him to death with your shoe.”

  “Killed the Santero?” Figgy had to think about that. He drifted inward, fingering his necklace, red beads and black spaced with tiny cowrie shells. Returned, saying, “Maybe he only appeared to be dead. Eleguá is famous as a trickster.”

  “That’s the Santero’s name?”

  “No. Eleguá is my guardian saint. That the kind of shit he does, brings his followers to the crossroad of good and evil. Like, ‘Child, you decide.’ The Santero, he’s the asshole I mentioned—Vernum Quick. I don’t mind being chased, but, man, don’t you catch me. Yeah, I beat the shit out of Vernum bad.”